generations, and to me he seems In aspect like the ever-living gods. O Nestor, son of Neleus, truly say How died the monarch over mighty realms, Atrides Agamemnon? Where was then His brother Menelaus? By what arts Did treacherous Aegisthus plan his death, And slay a braver warrior than himself? Was not the brother in the Achaian town Of Argos? or was he a wanderer In other lands, which made the murderer bold?”
The knight, Gerenian Nestor, answered thus:— “I will tell all and truly. Thou hast guessed Rightly and as it happened. Had the son Of Atreus, fair-haired Menelaus, come From Troy, and found Aegisthus yet alive Within the palace, he had never flung The loose earth on his corpse, but dogs and birds Had preyed upon it, lying in the fields Far from the city, and no woman’s voice Of all the Greeks had raised the wail for him. Great was the crime he plotted. We were yet Afar, enduring the hard toils of war, While he, securely couched in his retreat At Argos, famed for steeds, with flattering words Corrupted Agamemnon’s queen. At first The noble Clytemnestra turned away With horror from the crime; for yet her heart Was right, and by her side there stood a bard With whom Atrides, when he went to Troy, Had left his wife with many an earnest charge. But when the gods and fate had spread a net For his destruction, then Aegisthus bore The minstrel to a desert isle, and there Left him to be devoured by birds of prey, And led the queen, as willing as himself, To his own palace. Many a victim’s thigh Upon the hallowed altars of the gods He offered, many a gift of ornaments Woven or wrought in gold he hung within Their temples, since at length the mighty end For which he hardly dared to hope was gained. We sailed together from the coast of Troy, Atrides, Menelaus, and myself, Friends to each other. When the headland height Of Athens, hallowed Sunium, met our eyes, Apollo smote with his still shafts, and slew Phrontis, Onetor’s son, who steered the barque Of Menelaus, holding in his hands The rudder as the galley scudded on— And skilled was he beyond all other men To guide a vessel when the storm was high. So there did Menelaus stay his course, Though